Haley Burns

Confucius once said, “choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. I am happy to say that while I have not followed every piece of advice given to me in my lifetime, I did follow this one and I am glad I did. Teaching is the most rewarding and enlightening job I have ever had the pleasure to have. Teaching does come with a very important responsibility that some tend to overlook; to be a life-long learner. I do not want to become stagnant or complacent with what I have learned. I do not wish to be a “laminated teacher” and that is why I am taking this step to embark on a new and exciting adventure in my quest for constant knowledge.

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To begin, my professional goal is simple; to be the absolute best teacher I can be, which includes being up to date on educational theories and practices. My plan is to teach elementary age children for the next twenty to thirty years. Eventually, I would like to pursue teaching education in higher education. Inspiring future educators as a professor would be such a rewarding endeavor. I believe my graduate degree will help me become a better elementary teacher and will help make me marketable for the higher education position I someday aspire to.

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Second, as an elementary teacher, my choice of degree concentration was in Literacy Education. In the elementary classroom, literacy is key. I think this concentration will help me become a better teacher to emergent readers. I am also interested in becoming a literacy leader or even a literacy coach, which I think this concentration will help me with.

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My goals for my career when I started my program in January of 2018 are still the same as the goals I have currently. I still want to develop my craft, particularly in literacy education. I still aspire to become a leader in the literacy realm. I still hope to become a professor someday when I feel I have taught elementary school long enough. In fact, I have recently applied to become an adjunct professor at a local community college once my MAED program is officially completed.

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One thing that has changed since I applied to my program is the grade I was slated to teach. When applying I was believing that I was moving from fourth grade down to first grade. I was extremely anxious for this new challenge because I had only taught third and fourth grade before. Although I ended up teaching a new grade, it was not first. Instead for the past two years, I have taught second grade. It is definitely a different world than third and fourth grade and their literacy needs are extremely different and imperative. My choice to concentrate in literacy was still extremely beneficial with this grade switch.

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In conclusion, I am always pushing myself to learn more about my field. I feel very confident that this graduate program has helped me do so.